Sizing Up
by Lovingh3art
Summary: Hank's caught in the middle of an ill-advised training course set up by Scott for his X-Con buddies, and the results are unexpectedly embarrassing. If he wasn't annoyed with Scott before, this may very well be the cherry on top. One-shot.


**Disclaimer: I do not own Ant-Man, Wasp, Hank Pym, or any other characters involved in this fanfic. They are characters created and owned by Marvel Comics, Marvel Studios, and Stan Lee.**

* * *

A physically tired Hank walked into the lab, silently hoping that he wouldn't have much work to deal with today. As soon as he'd thought it, he immediately groaned; Scott and his "friends" were in the middle of the complex, having set up what looked to be a series of puffed-up dummies put around them in a circle. That dim-witted Luis was laughing in a cheerful way while holding onto…a small, glowing disc?

No. Way. Scott hadn't done that. He wouldn't be _that_ stupid.

" _What_ are you four doing?" Hank demanded as he strolled towards them. Scott swerved and looked as innocent as he could. Luis deadpanned while trying to stash the disc in his pocket. Dave and Kurt put up their hands.

"Um…having fun?" Luis embarrassedly said.

"Hank, it's just a practice session," Scott tried to explain lightly.

"Oh, really?" Hank's hand swiped from Luis' grasp the red Pym Particle disc and held it up so everyone could see. "This isn't a toy, you buffoons! It's one thing to allow you to come into _my_ lab. It's another to let you play god with my work! Gah…"

"Doctor Pym, you seem like a lit guy and all…" Dave began, "…but, you sure you aren't being a little…I don't know…possessive?"

"I am not," Hank reprimanded. "I'm simply making sure you don't mess this up, like you four mess up everything."

"When have we messed up, Doctor Pym?" Luis asked, only to look afraid at the scowl on Hank's face. "I mean…recently? We did get that contract for the Karpetayens!"

"And we help take down Baba Yaga," Kurt mentioned. "So…points?"

Scott walked right up to Hank. "Hank, I get that we're not perfect, but if you expect us to be trustworthy, sometimes you need to take a leap and trust us criminals, or we're never going to get there…Please?"

The inventor glared at him momentarily and then huffed. "…All right. But not one of you better mess up what I letting you use." He walked away disgruntled. "You're lucky I have an experiment that's more pressing."

"You're the best, Hank!" Scott yelled out to his somewhat-mentor.

"Apparently."

As soon as he entered the back lab around the other side of the tunnel, Hank gazed upon his Quantum Realm suit. He'd been meaning to fix it up after nearly drowning in the Quantum Energy, and this was as good a chance as any. Feeling a slight decompression in the fabric with his finger, he lifted it up to see what he was dealing with. The very touch started to make him relive the experience, but he immediately shook it off and took to prepping it for immediate repairs.

A good thirty minutes later, Hank was sitting in the handmade suit, adjusting some of the features so it'd be workable again. The way he'd read it from Janet's perspective, the suit had to emit hard light energy at a frequency that understood the landscape of the Quantum Realm. So much for theory, though…

CRASH! He whirled back at the front of the lab, groaned, and got up. Marching around the tunnel, the aged scientist gawked in awe had transpired in front of him. If things hadn't been this bad, maybe he'd be done with his work already.

Luis groaned flat on his back while an incredibly large plastic dummy towered over him and rested over one of his legs. Scott was dressed in his gear and attempted to move his pal's trapped appendage, but it wasn't budging. Kurt and Dave, meanwhile, were frantic as they looked around.

"What did you four do now?" Hank demanded from within his newly-put on gear.

"Hank, this isn't as bad as it looks," Scott began. "Just give me a sec and this problem will go away before you can… shrink between the molecules?"

"…Hah…bad joke, Scotty…" Luis moaned, barely looking at the two.

Kurt was fumbling through the bins and tools for more discs. "Where are discs, Dave?"

"I don't know...Oh, I found one!" Dave swerved around with a disc in his hands and looked excited while focusing in on the giant dummy. "Hang on, man, I'll shrink that dummy in no time!"

"Now wait for just one- "Hank had darted in front of the dummy and the two idiots pinned around it, too distracted by his own speaking to notice that Dave had excitedly gone ahead with chucking the disc at his vicinity. It took a mere second before he noticed the small red flash darting towards him, and by then it was too late.

Like some sort of backward vacuum, a slight pop sounded into the laboratory. The dummy and the four ex-cons still remained, although.

"Dave…" Kurt trailed off. "Where doctor Pym?"

Dave's face was a mixture of panic and worry, culminating in a horrifying realization as he realized just who was missing. "No….no…I killed him! I shrunk him!"

Scott, who up to this point had been a carefree and laid-back friend, suddenly tensed up as he considered what they were implying. "Dave, you hit Hank with the disc?"

"I didn't mean to, man! I just got excited, and the next thing I know, he's gone! I done killed him!"

"No…" Scott pointed out while shaking his head. "No, you didn't, buddy."

Kurt held up a worried eyebrow. "What do you mean he is not dead? He shrunk."

Scott shook his head again. "Hank was wearing the suit that he wore to the Quantum Realm. Think about it. If he could survive that journey and place wearing it, he could survive being shrunk in it. Meaning…"

Dave and Kurt looked at each other with confused expressions. It was Luis, surprisingly vocal despite being pinned under a giant fight dummy, who answered. "He's tiny…isn't he, Scotty?"

"Yep," Scott deadpanned. "Now we just gotta find him."

"I assume we look, yes?" Kurt kneeled down around where Hank had disappeared but only came up with pieces of dust and other small materials. "This hard. Any tips on finding tiny people like you?"

"Sorry. We're the best at hiding when we shrink down," Scott pointed out. He looked around some of the tool boxes in the back for both Hank and an enlargement disc. "Anybody else got better luck?"

"Not yet," Dave answered. His eyes combed the very spot where Hank had disappeared, but nothing was popping up.

"Hey!" The three looked back to Luis, whose face was red as the dummy pushed deeper into him. He looked like he was about to explode from the pressure. "I'm still trapped under this!"

"Sorry!" Scott unloaded another red disc from his wrist, carefully checked where he was throwing it and released it. Another POP! following, Luis began to breathe easier once the dummy was a few feet away from him and much smaller. "You feeling better?" He asked, giving a hand to help his friend up.

"Scotty, you gotta' warn me next time 'bout that stuff. It could have killed me!" Luis half-joked.

"Still," Dave reminded them. "We gotta' find Doctor Pym. Bad enough we're using his lab, what if Scott's girlfriend and her mom walk in?" He got down on his knees to search for the good doctor, though his findings weren't any better than Kurt's.

Scott's face froze awkwardly. "She-she's not my girlfriend. We're just partners."

"She kissed you after you went big at the harbor," Dave retorted.

"She was…relieved!" He said defensively.

"That you were alive, or that you were in love with her?"

"Oh come on…"

"OW!" Kurt suddenly fell backward, clutching his left knee and exhaling a little at the unexpected pain. "Knee hurts! Something hit knee!" His eyes searched for the cause until they rested near the floor. Then his mouth fell agape. "Think I found Doctor Pym."

Sure enough, his friends kneeled down around his spot and saw a tiny man in a crimson suit making frustrating movements towards them. It was him all right.

And he was all mad to the bone at them.

* * *

"Doctor Pym, can you hear us?" Luis asked.

The response they'd been waiting for came a few seconds later. "…Yes, Luis. I can hear you."

After Hank has punched Kurt's knee, the four ex-cons safely moved the shrunken man over to the workspace and deposited him on a table. They couldn't exactly understand his expression from within his suit, but based on the comms Scott had managed to connect with, they'd royally blown his nerves.

"Uh…you feeling alright, Doctor Pym?" Dave asked. "Just…you know, curious and all."

"Considering that I was SHRUNK WITHOUT MY CONSENT… I'd say I'm a bit conflicted right now." The miniature man fumed and paced back and forth, glaring as best he could at the giants above him. "Now, can someone please enlarge me so this whole debacle is over?"

"Got it, Hank," Scott relayed. He looked down at his belt only to pale and glance at his friends. "Huh. Where'd all the discs go?"

Luis held his hands up. "Wasn't me. And I didn't get to use any yet. I got stuck under that dummy, remember? Shame."

He turned to the other two. "Dave, Kurt? You have any of the blue discs?"

"You mean this?" Kurt procured one of the blue Pym discs from his pocket, promptly handing it to Scott. "Kept extra when things got worse again."

"You're a lifesaver. Really." Scott turned back to Hank and aimed the disc at him. "Okay, this is for real. We've got the disc to change you back, Hank. Ready for us this time?"

The toy-sized man folded his arms. "Are you planning on bumping into me when I get bigger?"

"Wait, what?" Dave questioned, confused.

"You need to BACK UP," Hank barked to the four. After a second of consideration, they realized his insinuation and moved closer to the door. Scott checked that they were a safe distance away before lobbing the disc at the tiny man, everyone waiting for the inevitable to occur.

But the exact opposite happened. The disc whacked into Hank, causing him to be knocked straight back to the edge of the wall behind the desk. He coughed while the disc rattled on to its side momentarily.

"Hank!" Scott exclaimed, semi-worried about the aged man. "You okay?" He ran up to the desk, his hands ready to help.

"Better question," added Kurt. "Why disc not make professor big?"

Hank got up and grumbled. "Somebody please kill me..."

"Y'know, I not a scientist expert or anything…Dave began… "But maybe we should call…Mrs. Pym?"

Nervous, Scott looked back to him and frowned. "Yeah…that's probably the best idea…"

"No!" Hank shouted at them. "My wife does not need to know about this! You four can figure this out on your own."

"You said we buffoons twenty minutes ago," Kurt commented.

Hank gulped. "Well, I meant if you were guided the right way. Not on your own!"

"How's about this, then?" Luis cut in. "What if we just had a vote? Do it ourselves or call Mrs. Pym?"

The four coughed in agreement. Hank was the only one who seethed at the idea.

"Seems like we in agreement. Call Mrs. Pym," Kurt said decisively.

Hank groaned and leaned back on the desk. How much more embarrassing could this be for him?

* * *

"And to think getting shrunk without permission was already emasculating."

Janet Van Dyne towered over her miniaturized husband, looking calm but obviously trying to suppress the childish smile working its way past her cheeks. "It's not that bad, honey."

"You're literally standing over me." Hank huffed.

"Which isn't as terrible as being stuck inside a subatomic dimension for more than two decades."

"Sorry…I just knew something like this was going to happen when Scott's…associates came here," Hank explained.

Janet chuckled. "Things like that are going to happen any time you have size-changing toys like ours around." She leaned closer. "The point is how to deal with it."

Hank smiled from his spot. "And that's why I love you. Always seeing the light in things."

"Oh, Henry. Quit playing with me."

The cheerfulness faded from his visage as he sat down on a nearby eraser. "But seriously, what's my prognosis?"

Janet straightened up and gave him a harder face. "The Pym particles in the disc you got hit with, combined with the residual quantum energy in your suit…it's put you into some sort of subatomic bind. You're stuck at that size for a day, maybe a couple, until the residual effects expunge from your suit." It looked like her face drooped when she revealed the news.

"…Great," he said with a tone of sarcasm.

To both's surprise, Scott showed up in the small lab, knocking on the door. "Hey, Mrs. Pym. Hiya Hank. How's it looking?"

"Not pleasant, Scott," Janet replied. "But give him a few days, and Hank'll be back to normal size."

"We were just discussing that," Hank inserted, then faced his wife. "Where am I going to sleep? How am I going to eat?" He asked the two of them.

Scott looked up quickly in an act of nervousness. "Well…I mean, couldn't you just do without it? At least for a couple days…"

"He's not wrong," Janet added. "I managed a good amount of time when I first got stuck in the Quantum Realm not eating. And you could always sleep on one of my pillows in the meantime…"

"…Fine…." Hank fumed.

At least there wouldn't be pictures of this.

* * *

And a few days later, Hank did return to normal size. And Scott and his X-Con pals swore to never again cross the good doctor.

 **The End.**

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 **Thanks! Hope you like or appreciate this one-shot! Feel free to favorite, review, and follow this story. More Ant-Man stories are definitely in the works from me down the line. Adios, good readers!**


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